Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice

Makos's book tells the true story of the friendship between Jessie Brown, the first African American naval aviator, and Tom Hudner, a privileged white man from Massachusetts who turns down a Harvard education in order to attend the Naval Academy to become a fighter during the Korean War. Jessie invariably faces discrimination from some of his squadron mates, but Tom is able to see past the man's skin color. Makos, journalist and author of the New York Times bestseller, A Higher Call, spent years interviewing family members of Jessie, Hudner, veterans, and old crew members--in addition to travelling to the battlefields in Korea-- to share this story of Tom and Jessie. Devotion takes the reader on Tom and Jessie's first deployment, allowing the reader to get to know them and the rest of the flyers on a more intimate level. An extensive portion of the book is also devoted to telling the story of the U.S. Marines engaged on the ground, thereby giving the reader a much broader context in which to consider the story of the two main figures. Tom and Jessie's friendship deepens as they fly missions in support of the Marines fighting on the ground, and it is during one of these missions that Jessie's aircraft succumbs to enemy fire, forcing him to crash land in enemy territory. Tom, showing the extent of the devotion to his friend, purposefully crashes his perfectly operable aircraft in an attempt to help free Jessie from the wreckage and flee to safety. Makos's writing is so well crafted, that the reader feels that they're experiencing combat themselves. I like that Makos tells the story of two men who may have never been friends if not for the war or maybe even military service in general. Tom came from a successful family- his father owned a grocery store; Jessie came from a family of sharecroppers. Both men were extremely patriotic, and that patriotism is woven throughout the chapters of this book. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and have recommended it to friends and family, all of whom have enjoyed the read. It is nice to see an author like Makos so fully devoted to his work--the amount of research performed and also travelling to Korea with Hudner-- enabling the reader to experience what the heroes of the Korean War encountered and carry with them to this day. This is a legacy worth reading.

I am not an historian or particularly well-educated in military history. Nor am I any kind of real critic - just a very grateful American Nobody who loves to read about our amazing WWII Veterans and their experiences. The brief recap of this book and that it was written by Adam Makos got my attention - his books about WWII are so good. Knowing almost nothing about the Korean War, I decided to give this book a go and bought it on CD. As I wrote to Mr. Makos, this book is, simply, beautiful. That may not be an appropriate word to some but that is how it struck me. These men and women are amazing people and "meeting" them has been another experience in gratitude and learning. The courage, love and sacrifice these people gave really shine through in Makos' telling and Dominic Hoffman does (in my opinion) as good a job reading this book as Edward Herrmann did "Unbroken." Some may question the actual closeness of the friendship between Jesse L. Brown and Tom Hudner - I did at first. Until Hudner makes the decision to help Brown with the full knowledge he was risking his own life and career. The title is perfect. It describes the Navy pilots and Marines central to the story, the marriage of Jesse and Daisy Brown, and the love and care of Brown's fellow pilots and the USS Leyte crew toward the Browns. The book is also a really good primer (for lack of a better word) for those of us who know so little about the Korean War, especially the battle of the Chosin Reservoir which I agree was very close to being the Korean version of the Battle of the Bulge. I find it so wrong that, at middle age, I had never heard of Ensign Brown - a true pioneer and an exceptional man who's story should be known by all Americans. Nor had I ever heard of Lt. Hudner who truly earned his MoH. And we should never discount or forget the awful racism of those times (or any other). Makos' book is a well written, engaging and remarkable story that I am thankful to have found. It's also a very worthy history lesson on several levels. Read this book - you won't regret it. But do remember to keep tissues near - you will need them.

Adam Makos Devotion I have now completed Adam Makos three novels, somewhat out of order, with the last first, then the first, and now Devotion. I’m somewhat happy there’s not a fourth, at least for a while. I found Devotion the least satisfying, behind Spearhead and A Higher Call. My rationale follows, and for those who have not read Devotion, and don’t know how it ends, I will include a bit of a spoiler alert. Makos writing is formulaic, though not bad, and pivots around a central event in all his novels thus far. Background information on the main characters, some technical dialogue, less in Devotion than the other two books, and events funneling in toward the stories climactic moments. The story then fans out from the book’s climax, and leads us to the more recent past. Devotion’s main story occurs during the Korean War, a conflict that really has had paltry coverage compared to our armed interventions of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Devotion occurs during the war’s first two years. The focal points of Devotion are a sharecroppers son who becomes the Navy’s first black carrier pilot, and a well to do east coast Naval academy graduate, the cast of characters around them, and sub-stories involving marines and army on the ground. The books span informs the reader briefly of how the war began, the initial push of the North Korean Army, MacArthur’s success in pushing them back to the Yalu River, and the subsequent counter attack by the Chinese, with the retreat of the 1st Marine Division from the Chosin Reservoir. Devotions central figures, Ensign Jesse Brown and Lieutenant Tom Hudner fly F4U Corsairs, and are members of Fighter Squadron 32 on the aircraft carrier USS Leyte Gulf. Ultimately, their focus is supporting the marines during the retreat from the Chosin Reservoir. I’ll be honest, with Devotion, I had no knowledge of what happened prior to reading the book. Perhaps it’s tragic pivotal moment was part of the reason for not enjoying this book vs Makos other two books. Perhaps Makos attempted to cover too much tangential material. I found myself wanting to know more about life on the carrier, more about the Corsair and its eccentricities, but that’s just me. The reader receives a healthy dose of the racism that existed, and how Jesse Brown prevailed. To those who say slavery ended more than 150 years ago, it’s time for “them” to get over it, Devotion documents the systematic and unbridled racism that existed 60 years ago. The treatment received by Jesse Brown and ultimately his wife Daisy leaves the reader with a feeling of aching emptiness. Adam Makos Devotion is a good book. He captures the waste and desolation of war in a very personal fashion. His research notes and bibliography are extensive, as well as the multitude of photographs documenting his story. Devotion is a page turner, tough to put down, and though in this reviewer’s opinion, not as good as his books that were published before and after Devotion, it is well worth the read.

Now that the movie adaptation (which I haven't seen) of this book is out and I've seen all the Hollywood posters, I was expecting this book to be a singular "human interest" tale about two pilots of different races bonding and then accomplishing some heroic feat in combat. I'm a fan of aviation and have always been fascinated by modern war history, so why not give it a go? But this book turned out not to be what I expected. It is indeed a remarkable war tale involving two exceptional men of different backgrounds. However it is also so much more than that. At Devotion’s core is a harrowing re-counting of the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir--one of the Korean War's most significant and horrifying battles--as told from the viewpoints of multiple real people both on the ground and in the air.*** The author attempts to put you into the frostbitten bodies of its main characters as they haplessly endure wave after wave of night attacks from bayonet-baring Chinese soldiers, all the while praying for air support that cannot come. Starting from the book's second third, along came numerous educational tidbits for my brain: for instance, the war being "Korean," I never knew how much of it was played out primarily by Chinese soldiers (the US was once kind of unofficially at war with China?!), who essentially surrounded and slaughtered some 800 American servicemen on their first pass. I never knew how weapons froze at night so commonly that skirmishes were won or lost via bayonet and hand-to-hand combat (ugh). I never knew that so many Chinese and North Korean POWs elected NOT to return to their home countries at the war's end (what a telling choice), and that the thorny issue of their repatriation was what kept the war going for so long. Surely, Devotion is flawed in some ways; for instance, the book's preamble took up at least the entire first third of the book and I personally found it way too long. (For instance, why are so many pages spent on Elizabeth Taylor’s pre-combat interactions with the USS Leyte’s crew, again told from multiple viewpoints? It made the story feel paltry, and was an ironic choice considering the author later specifically footnotes that Elizabeth Taylor’s subsequent request to visit the Leyte was denied for the reason that she would detract from the gravity of events . . . ) This portion could certainly have been condensed without losing too much backdrop. That said, if anyone feels this first third is losing them, I’d definitely recommend to keep on reading. Once the real combat begins, the story does not disappoint. Given the perplexing dearth of accessible American books about the Korean War, I feel this book is sorely needed. It has always vexed me to that so many lives, including 37,000 American ones, were spent securing the freedom of today's 51 million South Koreans--and yet we seem to have forgotten them. Without the sacrifice of so many young men, we would have no K-Pop, K-dramas, Samsung, Hyundai! (If only the US had been able to claim such a partial victory in Vietnam . . . given my own Vietnamese heritage, I look at South Korea and think about this particular "what if" all the time.) It seems a grave injustice that the suffering these men endured, and what they accomplished as a result, has largely been eclipsed by narratives surrounding WWII and the Vietnam War. This book is one more much-needed chip in the battle against that injustice. At its end, I felt real gratitude to Adam Makos and his staff for undertaking the painstaking work of gathering and telling these men's stories. What love this must have required. Bravo. ***EDIT: For those who liked the photographs in Devotion and are interested in the VISUALS of the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir (and of the Korean War in general), I would highly recommend the documentary “American Experience: The Battle of Chosin,” which is available on Prime Video (and is included in a Prime subscription). It contains excellent footage of many of the devastating details included in Makos’ book, including Chinese night assaults on American Marines, eventual air support (Corsairs and Skyraiders!), and the 14-mile withdrawal march to Hungnam Bay. It also features numerous veteran interviews including with Red Parkinson, one of Devotion’s primary characters.

“Devotion” is an excellent book that I have recommended to friends, family and colleagues. I have read about Tom Hudner and Jesse Brown in other sources, but author Adam Makos provides a much higher level of detail about the lives of these men and the circumstances that brought them together in their squadron and at the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea during the Korean War. Selflessness and service are strong themes throughout the story. It is difficult to fathom what Jesse Brown had to overcome to become the nation’s first African-American Naval aviator in the late 1940’s, or the dedication and selflessness that fellow pilot Tom Hudner displayed toward Jesse in their service together. There are many heroes in this story, not just Jesse and Tom, but the Marines on the ground at the Chosin Reservoir who faced dire circumstances, the other Navy and Marine pilots flying perilous missions, and others. Author Makos clearly conducted an incredible amount of research, and the detail he is able to include really brings the circumstances, conversations and characters to life, and the result is that this work of nonfiction reads like a novel. “Devotion” will resonate with all types of readers, not just those interested in military history, because the characters are admirable, the action is compelling, and the themes are important. The book’s subtitle perhaps describes it best: “An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice.”

"Devotion" is a true story of heroism and friendship set against the backdrop of the Korean war. The story revolves around two pilots; Lt. Tom Hudner and Ens. Jesse Brown. Tom came from a well-to-do New England family, while Jesse grew up on a farm that his father share-cropped.. Jesse became the Navy's first black carrier pilot, while Tom would become his closest friend. After enlisting, Tom and Jesse were stationed aboard the carrier USS Leyte. Originally sent to the Mediterranean, the pilots would engage in war games and relax on the French Riviera. They even got to meet Elizabeth Taylor. They also met some of the fleet Marines, including "Red" Parkinson. But the sunny skies and carefree days wouldn't last, for the war that no one expected, Korea, broke out in June of 1950. The Leyte immediately steamed for Korean waters. For the next several months, Tom, Jesse, and the other members of fighting 32 flew missions against the North Koreans & Chinese, while Red and the fleet Marines fought in the Chosin Reservoir. One day, during a strafing attack against the enemy, Jesse's plane was hit by ground fire. He was forced to land on an empty space on the top of a hill. Tom, seeing what had happened, had a difficult choice to make; does he watch his friend die, or does he try to save him? "Devotion" is a fine book about the bond between two friends. Tom and Jesse came from opposite ends of the social spectrum, but became fast friends in spite of their cultural differences. Tom Learned of Jesse's deep love for his wife and daughter as well as his strong religious devotion. Set during the racial tensions of the 1950s, Tom accepted Jesse for who he was; a young man like himself far away from home trying to defend his country. Highly recommended.

Good as the movie is - the written word is even better! This book is / was very hard to put down because the story is compelling, the people are real, and their stories are remarkably inspiring. I strongly recommend it for anyone to read because there is so much to draw from it, to absorb, and to reflect upon. Worth an investment of your time.

Loved It This is a wonderful , suspenseful,and heart warming book. It is hard to put down. While the background is the war in Korea it is not just a war book. It centers on a few carrier pilots but also includes the marine grunts from the carrier who became surrounded by the enemy and saved by the pilots who knew them. There is also a great story about their first deployment to the middle east where they were when the war started. The best part of the book is about race relations in the 50,s, which were not so good then. One of the carrier pilots just happened to be one of the few black officers in the Navy, and the first and only black Navy pilot at the time. He was a great ,first class guy and became not only one of the best pilots, but the most popular and liked pilot on the carrier. The "devotion" comes about when the black pilot crashes his plane behind enemy lines and his wingman goes to extraordinary means to help his best friend. It is very moving and shows such devotion and courage.

Received in time and order. Just didn’t come new, looks a bit damaged

Makes a good and interesting read and the style makes it gripping.

Excellent.

Que história! Não tem o que dizer, recomendo e muito esse livro. Não somente a história de Jesse Brown que é fantástica, mas também de todos os fuzileiros que estiveram lá naquela guerra.

An amazing story about an often ignored war.Great story telling again from Adam Makos!